


Loneliness—The Being Friends and So Much More Job

by crayonbreakygal



Category: Leverage
Genre: Drama, F/M, Friendship, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-29 02:48:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17799698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayonbreakygal/pseuds/crayonbreakygal
Summary: He never thought he’d end up where he was. It was a pretty damn good place to be.  Why was being friends/family so important to the team?





	Loneliness—The Being Friends and So Much More Job

**Author's Note:**

> That's one of the biggest themes on Leverage, that they're friends/family. All of them were expendable in that first episode The Nigerian Job. That's why Dubenich chose them in the first place. No one would miss them once he got rid of them. I often wonder about that too. I have very few close friends and just a small family. Oh how we all wished for friends like the ones on Leverage. Enjoy!

Loneliness—The Being Friends and So Much More Job

 

He had friends.  He’d always had friends.  Someone to rely upon in times of need.  Of course, he didn’t always want to rely on those friends, especially after losing plenty of them to war.  Friends were a liability, things that could be used against you.  So, he cut off most contact with them, just in case. 

Eliot Spencer wasn’t an idiot. He’d seen too many people make friends with him just to have them either leave him in disgust or have them be used against him.  He really, really did not want people to be used because of him.  So, he quit trying.  Sure, there were service buddies that he could call in time of need. He never wanted them to figure out though what had happened to him after he left the military.  Certain that they probably heard the rumors anyway, he turned them away when contacted.  Who needed friends? He most certainly did not.

A few times when he did connect with someone, it was used against him.  When he became Moreau’s right-hand man, he couldn’t afford to have anyone get close.  Moreau would see it as weakness. Eliot was not weak. He closed himself off to the outside world.  Damien was it.  His world revolved around one man, that man being somewhat psychotic.  Eliot became more and more reliant on Damien for everything, including friendship.  Only it came crashing down once Damien had him doing things that got people killed.  Eliot’s soul could not take it.

He closed himself off even more once leaving Moreau’s employment.  Best to be alone, no companionship other than the occasional hookup. Those weren’t friendships.  Those were stress relievers, plain and simple.  They didn’t know his name or what he did, and he didn’t ask too many questions or wanted much from them except a night in bed. One-night stands protected him and them.

Eliot sat in a chair, staring out at a stark landscape of barren trees, snow piling against the cabin where he was now located, some foreign country that didn’t care what or who he was. Something had to change.  His very being was hurting. He was alone, with no one to share even the smallest successes.  He was alone. Maybe it was for the best.

 

Disappointment was his middle name. Every single time he met with someone in real life, they’d disappoint him.  Alec tried. He most definitely tried to make friends. Only they kept letting him down.  Either they wanted money, which he now had, or they wanted to scam him, which he was now privy to their ways. He wasn’t some chump who gave his time and money away to just anyone. 

He had his Nana.  But she was his parent, not his friend. She’d made that very clear when he had moved in with her several years before.  She was there to lead him onto a better path, not to pat his back and coddle him. She was not his friend, although he knew she’d move heaven and earth to make sure he would survive.

He wanted a real family, real friends, a real life.  Pretending online was his only option at the moment.  Many of his friends online seemed like true friends.  They didn’t know who he was though. They’d never know unless they met face to face. Once or twice he’d tried meeting online friends. It had not gone well. They either thought he’d be exactly like them, which usually was very nerdy looking with clear hygiene issues or they were creepy as hell, so he walked away.  After two times, he gave up.  He shouldn’t have because there had to be fairly normal people who played games online.  They were out there. Hardison was just not that patient of a person.  Or maybe he just picked the wrong people.

In school, everyone thought he was a big geek.  The jocks didn’t want to hang with him because he couldn’t throw a ball in a straight line much less hold his own in a game of pickup basketball.  The nerds didn’t like him much because he was generally much smarter than they were and usually much taller too.  He sometimes intimidated them. He wasn’t sure why though.  The girls thought he was immature and full of crap, so they mostly avoided him like the plague.  Sure, there were a few people here and there that he tried to connect with, but it all had fizzled.

Stealing things was a lot more fun. You didn’t have to have friends to do this.  He’d connect with others online, so they didn’t see how he looked, what color his skin was or where he lived.  They were a community, but in name only.  Most of the time, he didn’t mind.  He’d play his games, hack his websites, troll who he wanted to, rake in the dough and laugh all the way to the bank.  It was lonely, not having someone to pat him on the back, to laugh at his corny jokes, to commiserate when things went wrong.

Alec Hardison hated being alone. Sitting in his loft condo, he looked out the window at all the activity in the city below.  It was serene watching all the people who looked like ants skittering to and fro.  He was above it all. He was king of his own domain.  Kings, for the most part, were alone. They alone ruled.  Hardison didn’t want to be king anymore. It just sucked not having a living human to share all this.

 

Air ducts never fit that many people. How could they?  She was a skinny thing so most people couldn’t fit in them like she could.  The ducts hid her quite well, especially when she needed to be stealthy.  Right now, she needed to be very stealthy.

Looking down from the shaft where she had lain for the last hour, she wondered what it would be like to have friends. Would they like what she did to make money?  Would they like money? She liked money, lots and lots of money. It all sat in her warehouse to be used when she needed it.  She almost never needed it. Her living expenses weren’t all that great. She didn’t go out with friends, which took money.  She ate inexpensively. Cereal wasn’t all that expensive.

She didn’t go out on the weekends with friends to bars or dance clubs.  The few times she attempted to make friends in school, they looked down on her instead of embracing her.  She was always that strange kid that lived with foster parents.  Being strange hurt her chances of having a normal friendship. She’d either do something to turn them away from her or they would never approach her in the first place.

Sometimes they would have her hang around with them, but she often discovered the kids just wanted to see what crazy idea she had. Once she performed for them, she’d be cast out of the group.  Burying herself deep in the ground or fighting usually got one banned from a friends’ group really quick.  She stopped trying after a while.  No use trying to make friends if they never wanted to understand her.

Once she started stealing though, having friends was a liability. She didn’t want to be tied down, for anyone to find out who she really was.  Friends were just not worth it.  Parker found out that friends didn’t really want to be friends. They wanted to just take and keep taking until she had nothing left. 

Sometimes she just wanted someone to listen to her.  Early on in her life, she had that one someone who listened to her, but she was so young, she really didn’t remember much of her brother other than he was her friend. Then he died, taking with him his friendship.

Being called weird or worse had dampened her need for companionship.  People didn’t touch her, so she had no idea what that felt like or if she really wanted it in the first place.  Touch in her life had always meant something bad. Relationships with anyone always meant something bad could happen. So, she stopped trying.

Money can’t buy happiness, but it could buy lots more rigging setups and cereal.  She could travel wherever she wanted in the world. She could plan the best heist on the planet. All of this happened because she was by herself. No one to distract her. No one to make her feel inadequate. No one to touch her when she didn’t want to be touched.

Parker didn’t have any friends. She was ok with that, until looking at what was going on right outside that air duct.  Her heart hurt a little as she watched the two people converse about mundane things, like what they did the weekend before, what they were going to do once they got off work, how their families were doing.  To most people, it all seemed boring and petty.  But they weren’t alone. She was alone, in an air duct, waiting for them to go home so that she could rob them blind. No one to share a good job. No one to share what she did the day before.  Just alone.

And it hurt.

 

It hurt to pretend. It hurt to not let anyone in on what she really was or who she really was.  She’d have superficial friendships, but they weren’t real.  She could never tell them about her childhood, never explain what she did for a living, which would probably get her arrested. She could never tell them of all the adventures she had over the years. No one would believe that she had been an actress, an heiress, a mob boss, a princess. The list went on and on. 

Sophie Devereaux had more “pretend” friends than anyone else in the world.  Except she was so lonely it sometimes hurt at night when she was alone with her thoughts.  No one would understand why she did what she did.  It was like an addiction in some ways.  Steal more to get more to go steal more. The cycle continued unabated. It got interrupted on occasion. She relished when it did because it provided a needed change to her daily routine.  If she just had that one friend to provide her with some needed comfort, maybe she wouldn’t feel so vulnerable. Or she could actually tell them her real name.

Sophie had almost had that, a real friend.  Of course, a real friend wouldn’t try to jail her every time they saw one another.  A real friend would support her in every endeavor. So maybe Nate Ford wasn’t a real friend in the true sense of the word.  An acquaintance perhaps. Only they seemed to be more. Whether they went the other way and became lovers was off the table.  He had a wife and a child and a life, while she had her characters, her storage units. Their lives were entirely different.  And he was the law. There was that.

She easily made friends in school, but they always seemed to be lacking.  That did make her seem like a snob to some but being discerning had saved her bacon on plenty of occasions.  Opening up to whoever wasn’t the best of plans.  She’d learned the hard way a few times, especially when it came to matters of the heart.  Making friends was easy.  Keeping them was another story.

There were no friends to have her back when she needed that. She didn’t have a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen to her troubles.  All she had were her wits and her looks and her loot to sell when she needed the cash.  Every single time she made friends with someone, opened herself up, they turned on her. At least she knew that Nate Ford would never turn on her. She knew what and who he was. Her one true friend.

Except her one true friend had disappeared off the radar, dealing with family matters and a sick child.  It wasn’t like they spent an inordinate amount of time together.  They didn’t call each other up to talk about the weather or what they were having for dinner.  He did know what she was thinking. She thought she had figured him out.  Only he was nowhere to be found. 

Would he be proud of her?  Her semi-retiredness had started to get on her last nerve. Sophie was tired of life on the prowl, looking for the next score, looking for the next piece of artwork to plan the job, to steal whatever she could get her hands on. She wanted to just breathe, feel safe in her surroundings. So, she quit, which isolated her even that much more.

Joining the small group of actors in Chicago was her chance to start over.  Only they were petty and horrible to her, thinking that she was not serious about her station in life.  There was too much backstabbing, too many diva issues (herself included).  They didn’t want to be friends.  They were rivals.

There might be a few people who were still in the business, but they were busy grifting. Tara might want to reconnect but why would she with Sophie out of the limelight? 

Maybe it was just the rain falling, the darkness turning her small apartment into a place with shadows and dark corners. She wanted the light, the airiness to be herself, to show the world what she had to give.  Only she couldn’t. She never could.  They’d never understand why she did what she did.  Very few people did.

Cradling the hot tea in her hands, she looked out into the night, wondering what was next. She didn’t have a sounding board, to figure out where she was going next. All she had were her wits. She wanted someone else to help form her ideas, to make her feel less like she was walking a tightrope every single day.  She wanted to feel connected.

Sophie Devereaux was lonely, heart-crushing lonely. Being alone protected her. But being alone was slowly killing her.

 

Being alone was slowly killing Nate Ford and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.  No one cared what happened to him and they hadn’t for quite some time.  He’d burned those bridges over the last two years. There was no one left, even his ex-wife, who pitied him. It was his own fault. He knew that. He knew deep down in his soul that it was his fault.

Nate had friends. He had plenty of friends.  He made friends in school, even though his father sometimes pissed his friends’ parents off on occasion.  They mostly didn’t hold it against Nate. Jimmy wasn’t exactly the nicest person in the world and showed it on plenty of occasions.  It sometimes made Nate’s life difficult, but for the most part, he was a typical child who turned into a typical teenager.  He argued with his parents, he pushed the boundaries a little bit, but mostly he was a good student with a bright future who had lots of friends on his side.

Many of them were perplexed when he decided to go to seminary.  Even his closest friend who became a priest in his own right thought that Nate was nuts to decide on this choice.  It ended disastrously. So, they were right. From then on, Nate had a chip on his shoulder the size of Boston.  If they didn’t understand him, then why should he give them the time of day?  It was better for him to move across the country instead of attempting to explain to his group of friends what he was feeling. He was a young man without a compass. They all wanted to start their lives, marry their childhood sweethearts and live in the neighborhoods where they grew up. Nate wanted more. There had to be more out there. He didn’t want to be Jimmy Ford. He wanted to be Nate Ford, smarter, faster than his father, who had just been sent to prison while Nate was trying to figure himself out as an adult.

College was exactly what he needed because he could reinvent himself. He had lots of friends, friends that didn’t know his past. They all thought he was some trust fund kid from Boston, where instead he worked two jobs and was there on scholarship, just barely making it all work. He partied hard with them, told them little white lies and went on with his life like nothing mattered.

He met women, lots of women who thought he was charming and successful. They never stayed and he never asked them to stay.  The cycle continued after graduation.  Friends would drop off the radar. Nate would add more to his list. They were superficial at best.  Until he met Jim Sterling.  They were like two peas in a pod.  Both had the same outlook on life, both had the ambition, and were totally competitive with the other.  Nate thought he knew Sterling well.

It was through Sterling that Nate met Maggie.  Well, it was the fact that Sterling happened to mess up attempting to ask Maggie out on a date with Nate saving the day.  It took her a while to warm up to him, but in the end, she thought he was dating material.  Another conquest on the books for him. He thought he was losing his touch before he met Maggie. Maybe it was just him being a bit more discerning on who he dated. Or maybe it was women was finally wising up to his antics.  Love ‘em and leave ‘em had earned him a reputation in several circles. 

He had his little circle of friends, mostly from work. They’d hang out, do things together, talk about all that was going on in the world around them.  The older all of them got, the less time they had to spend hanging out. Nate got serious about Maggie, realizing that this was it.  If he wanted his chance at having a family, this was it. He sometimes felt it was a race. Get the good job, find the girl, make a family. It wasn’t something he was used to having grown up the way he did. 

But it was lonely. He felt like he was living a lie.  As he started to get older, he wondered where all the time went.  Then after having a kid, the time just disappeared at the snap of his fingers.  It was either him being on the road or desperately trying to carve a bit of time for Sam when he could. 

Maggie had her large group of friends, often seeing them on the weekends while he was gone.  He sometimes participated, but never felt welcome. His old group of friends disappeared except for Sterling, who was always around.  Their sniping at each other had started to take a toll on Nate. Sterling had even admitted one night while they were stinking drunk that his life wasn’t what he had imagined.  He took it out on Nate like Nate had it all and it was his fault that Sterling thought he didn’t have enough.

Then Sam got sick.  Maggie’s friends rallied around her, supported her. Nate just kept on working because they needed the money.  Maggie had been there for every milestone that Sam had made. Now she was there for every needle stick, for every sleepless night.  Nate tried. He definitely tried. The only way he could help was to keep his job. His boss didn’t understand Nate’s need to be there for his son. There were words and confrontations and finally at the end of his son’s life, the money ran out as did the insurance.

There were not many friends to pitch in, to help him through the crisis. The few that tried, like Sterling and Father Paul, were met with resistance. Nate didn’t believe they were friends, thinking that they would abandon him. He would abuse them by yelling at them, screaming at times, getting drunk, belligerent.  He pushed them away just like he pushed his wife away.  He wanted to be alone, to wallow in his own tainted soul.  It was now irrefutably damaged beyond repair, or so he thought.

The only one he thought would understand had disappeared months before. He often wondered where Sophie was and what she was doing. She had understood him, had often figured him out before he even knew what to do himself.  The connection was strong, but the fact that she was a criminal had made it impossible to be truly friends with her. He’d chalk it up to lust and leave it at that.

He was lonely but would never let anyone who might care know that.  They had their own lives to lead. He wouldn’t intrude.  They wouldn’t want to hear about how he wanted to die that night, as he watched his only son slip away. They wouldn’t want to hear how he screamed himself hoarse for the doctors to do something, anything to save that little boy.  That little boy was his life.

Maybe he deserved to be alone, atonement for all that he had done wrong in his life. As he sat there on that barstool, wondering what was coming next in his life, he downed another drink. It numbed him so that his thoughts couldn’t take over. It was good to be alone. No one would get hurt that way.

The man who spoke in his ear, telling him how sorry he was that his family… No, Nate thought. Don’t feel sorry for me. Get out of my face before I punch you.  Only Nate didn’t get him to leave.  He gave Nate a job. A damn good job.  It would give him money, which he was sorely lacking at that place and time.

“It’s not going to work. These people that you’ve hired all have the same rep. They work alone. They always work alone, there’s no exceptions, and there’s no way they’re going to work for you.”

Little did Nate know they would work for the right amount of money. It all went to shit. If Nate had been thinking straight and hadn’t been so swayed by the money and the drinking, he probably would have noticed it was a set-up.  They all were loners. They all worked by themselves, except for him, although he didn’t have a job anymore. They all were expendable.

Lonely, expendable. No one would miss them.

They all thought he was an honest man. He almost started to laugh the way he laughed in that warehouse, hysterical laughter when you knew you were screwed every which way to Sunday. Honest my ass.

Pulling Sophie into the plan was genius. They’d get in, get out, get their money. He wouldn’t have to see them ever again, although seeing Sophie again had stirred in him a need to connect at least one more time and it wasn’t just about his lust this time.

In the end, they all agreed that they had worked well together. That didn’t mean they were friends.  But colleagues. He’d love to see where this led.

 

Eliot was content. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t how he saw this going down five years before.  He had a family. He had friends. He had a life. Whether he actually deserved that was another issue. He had Parker and Hardison.  His world was large and small at the same time.  He felt proud, yes proud of the things he had done over the last few years.  He’d take each of their hands and head into the future, knowing he could try to atone for what had happened in the past, and protecting what was his with all his might.

 

Hardison was giddy. No, he was sad for what was happening before his eyes, but it made him happy too.  They were forming and reforming again. He had his family, his best friends, his mentors, his lover. He belonged. He didn’t have to explain his feelings. He didn’t have to hide what he was. He was home. It was all he ever wanted.

 

Parker was happy/sad.  Happy tears, sad tears.  At least she had tears to give now. She trusted these four people standing before her. They’d taken a scared little girl and turned her into a human being.  She still didn’t understand some things, but they were there for her now to help her out. They trusted her beyond measure.  They loved her not because of what or who she was but just because.  They were her best friends, her family.

 

Being alone had not protected her.  Now standing before her were the ones that protected her, made her feel alive.  She often wondered where she would have gone if Nate hadn’t shown up in that alley over five years before. She was floundering. Her heart was hidden.  She didn’t know her way. Now the path was a bit clearer, a bit brighter. The loneliness had subsided. They understood her, cherished her, made her feel like a queen (or at least Nate did).  All she ever wanted was to feel loved. Now she did, in more ways than one. Whether it was romantic love with Nate or brotherly love with Hardison and Eliot or motherly love that she sometimes felt with Parker, she knew now that she was wanted.  The ring on her finger symbolized more than her faith in Nate. It symbolized her joining with all of them. They were her family. 

 

Five long years later, as Nate stood with his hand in Sophie’s, he realized that he did need friends. What’s more, he needed a family, people that understood him, that needed him as much as he needed them.  Those words that he had stuttered to Sophie a few years before had come true. He needed them, all of them, not just Sophie to survive. They had taken him in, cleaned him up, and presented him to the world as a thief, a grifter, a mastermind, a pseudo-father, and a friend. None of these would have happened without them leading him along the way.  That speech as he stood there, possibly bleeding out from the gunshot wound, had come true. They were his family. He’d fight for that any day of the week.  Now on to a new journey, he realized.  They were ready to take flight, conquer the world, while he went on to new adventures with his lovely soon to be wife.  He never thought he’d end up where he was. It was a pretty damn good place to be.

 


End file.
